Anselm of Canterbury: Encyclopedia II - Anselm of Canterbury - Biography

Anselm of Canterbury - Biography

Anselm of Canterbury - Early life

Anselm was born in the city of Aosta in the Kingdom of Burgundy. Aosta is located in the Italian Alps region of Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley), near the borders with twentieth century France and Switzerland. His family was accounted noble, and owned considerable property. Gundulph, his father, was by birth a Lombard, and seems to have been a man of harsh and violent temper. His mother, Ermenberga, was a prudent and virtuous woman, who gave the young Anselm careful religious training. At the age of fifteen he desired to enter a convent, but he could not obtain his father's consent. Disappointment brought on an apparent psychosomatic illness, and after he recovered he seems to have given up his studies for a time and lived a more carefree life. During this period his mother died, and his father's harshness became unbearable. In 1059 he left home, crossed the Alps, and wandered through Burgundy and France. Attracted by the fame of his countryman Lanfranc, then prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Bec, Anselm entered Normandy. The following year, after spending some time at Avranches, he entered the abbey as a novice at the age of twenty-seven.

Anselm of Canterbury - His years at Bec

Three years later, in 1063, when Lanfranc was made the abbot of Caen, Anselm was elected prior. This office he held for fifteen years, and then, in 1078, on the death of the warrior monk Herluin, founder and first abbot of Bec, Anselm was elected abbot. Under his jurisdiction, Bec became the first seat of learning in Europe, although Anselm appears to have been less interested in attracting external students to it. It was during these quiet years at Bec that Anselm wrote his first philosophical works, the Monologion and Proslogion. These were followed by The Dialogues on Truth, Free Will, and the Fall of the Devil.

Meanwhile the convent had been growing in wealth and reputation, and had acquired considerable property in England. It became the duty of Anselm to visit this property occasionally. By his mildness of temper and unswerving rectitude, he so endeared himself to the English that he was looked upon as the natural successor to Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury. But on the death of that great man, King William II seized the possessions and revenues of the see, and made no new appointment.

About four years later, in 1092, on the invitation of Hugh, Earl of Chester, Anselm crossed to England. He was detained by business for nearly four months, and when about to return, was refused permission by the king. In the following year William fell ill, and feared his death was at hand. Eager to make atonement for his sin with regard to the archbishopric, he nominated Anselm to the vacant see, and after a great struggle compelled him to accept the pastoral staff of office. After obtaining dispensation from his duties in Normandy, Anselm was consecrated in 1093.

Anselm of Canterbury - Archbishop of Canterbury

As the conditions of his retaining office, Anselm demanded of the king that the he should give up all the possessions of the see, accept Anselm's spiritual counsel, and acknowledge Urban as pope in opposition to the anti-pope, Clement. He only obtained a partial consent to the first of these demands, and the last involved him in a serious difficulty with the king. It was a rule of the church that the consecration of metropolitans could not be completed without their receiving the pallium from the hands of the pope. Anselm, accordingly, insisted that he must proceed to Rome to receive the pall. But William would not permit this; he had not acknowledged Urban, and he maintained his right to prevent any pope being acknowledged by an English subject without his permission. A great council of churchmen and nobles was held to settle the matter, and it advised Anselm to submit to the king. This advice failed to overcome Anselm's mild and patient firmness, and the matter was postponed. William meanwhile privately sent messengers to Rome, who acknowledged Urban and prevailed on him to send a legate to the king bearing the archiepiscopal pall. A partial reconciliation was then effected, and the matter of the pall was compromised. It was not given by the king, but was laid on the altar at Canterbury, whence Anselm took it.

Little more than a year after, fresh trouble arose with the king, and Anselm resolved to proceed to Rome and seek the counsel of his spiritual father. With great difficulty he obtained the king's permission to leave, and in October 1097 he set out for Rome. William immediately seized the revenues of the see, and retained them to his death. Anselm was received with high honor by Urban, and at a great council held at Bari, he was put forward to defend the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost against the representatives of the Greek Church. But Urban was too politic to embroil himself with the king of England, and Anselm found that he could obtain no substantial result. He withdrew from Rome, and spent some time at the little village of Schiavi, where he finished his treatise on the atonement, Cur Deus homo, and then retired to Lyons. When he attempted to return to England, William would not allow him entrance.

Anselm of Canterbury - Conflicts with King Henry I

William was killed in 1100 and his successor, Henry I, at once invited Anselm to return to England. But Henry demanded that Anselm should again receive from him in person investiture in his office of archbishop. The papal rule in this matter was plain: all homage and lay investiture were strictly prohibited. Anselm represented this to the king; but Henry would not relinquish a privilege possessed by his predecessors, and proposed that the matter should be laid before the Holy See. The answer of the pope reaffirmed the papal rule as to investiture. A second embassy was sent, with a similar result. Henry, however, remained firm, and at last, in 1103, Anselm and an envoy from the king set out for Rome. The pope, Paschal II, reaffirmed strongly the rule of investiture, and passed sentence of excommunication against all who had infringed the law, excepting King Henry.

This left matters essentially as they were, and Anselm, who had received a message forbidding him to return to England unless on the king's terms, withdrew to Lyons, where he waited to see if Paschal would not take stronger measures. At last, in 1105, he resolved himself to excommunicate Henry. His intention was made known to the king through his sister, and it seriously alarmed him, for it was a critical period in his affairs. A meeting was arranged, and a reconciliation between them effected. In 1106 Anselm crossed to England, with power from the pope to remove the sentence of excommunication from the illegally invested churchmen. In 1107 the long dispute as to investiture was finally ended by the king resigning his formal rights, and Anselm was allowed to return to England. The remaining two years of his life were spent in the duties of his archbishopric. He died on April 21, 1109. He was canonized in 1494 by Alexander VI and named a Doctor of the Church in 1720.

Anselm of Canterbury - Dilecto dilectori

Since Anselm was in the habit of addressing his epistolary poems to his dilecto dilectori, "beloved lover", there have been long running arguments among academics about Anselm’s sexuality. Though he had an intense emotional relationship with his mentor Lanfranc and then with a succession of his own pupils, the passionate expressions of attachment in his poems, within the constraints of monastic celibacy and contrasted with divine love, have no modern parallels ^[1]. Some secular historians such as Norman F. Cantor (In the Wake of the Plague 2001, p. 111) however, take Anselm's homosexuality as a matter of course. The issue is clouded on the one hand by Anselm's status as a saint and Doctor of the Church and on the other hand by modern stereotypes of modern sexuality anachronistically projected upon the past (Dobbins).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki